Holiday Drinks: The coquito
Many Spanish-speaking cultures have a holiday eggnog or milk punch. In Puerto Rico, it’s the coquito. “We make it with coconut milk because that’s so readily available,” says Giovanna Huyke, a native...
View ArticleKitchen Sink: ‘Tis the season for bourbon balls
While touring several Kentucky bourbon distilleries this summer, I learned more about the pleasures of the spirit — in a glass and, unexpectedly, in a confection. Tours of Maker’s Mark, Heaven Hill and...
View ArticleJerky’s long history is something to chew on
To jerky lovers, it must have seemed like manna when the makers of Jack Link’s air-dropped hundreds of little jerky packets, via miniature parachutes, over a championship youth baseball game in the...
View ArticleEating on the wild side in Alaska
The hardy Alaskan homemaker can “depend on the bracing, exhilarating outdoor life to whet the appetite for plain, wholesome food” – which, in the depths of winter, can mean canned or frozen provisions...
View ArticleMake molasses your valentine
Most of us load up on chocolate and other sugary confections for Valentine’s Day. But this holiday, how about showing a little love for a humble sweetener that has fallen out of fashion? Molasses...
View ArticleArtist relishes a comic take on food
Comic artist Lucy Knisley, who describes herself as a “child raised by foodies,” knows she’s had a somewhat rarefied view of America’s growing culinary sophistication. Now 29, she recalls scribbling...
View ArticleHospital food and ‘invalid cookery’ get healthy makeover
What do you feed someone who’s been laid low by illness, injury or surgery? American caregivers once spooned out porridge, gruels of milk and mushed bread or crackers, soft-cooked eggs and custards –...
View ArticleFor fans of fish fry, Lent brings little sacrifice
For Christians, Lent is the season of reflection and sacrifice leading up to Easter (April 20 this year). But there’s nothing penitential about one rite observed in some heavily Catholic regions of...
View ArticleFrom a little blue box, tradition in a Jiffy
A biscuit resembling a white hockey puck led Mabel White Holmes to start a revolution in home baking with a packaged dry mix. Back in the 1920s in Chelsea, Mich., a neighbor boy visiting Holmes’ young...
View ArticleA mom who could tame the wild rhubarb
I associate rhubarb with a certain primitivism – and my mom’s civilizing effects. My earliest memories of the stuff date to around age 6 and involve contentedly gnawing on a fresh-picked stalk while...
View Article
